This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Contact: AtlanticYardsReport[at]hotmail.com

Of course, you should be worrying that these bonds will default and consequently don’t deserve a good rating. A default will negatively affect the market for all New York issuers. But that is not all you should be worrying about. Moody’s has warned that the entire state is weeks away from a substantial downgrade of its credit rating if it doesn’t close its budget gap.

In allowing the property seizure, the Court of Appeals dodged some of the central challenges to the condemnation, including whether the Empire State Development Corporation's designation of blight in the Atlantic Yards area was applied after the stadium project had already been planned, making it a "pretext." Nor did the court take on the question—at the heart of eminent domain law since Kelo—whether economic development may be considered a public use under the New York Constitution.

On the upside, the court rendered expeditious judgment, positioning Ratner to meet a year-end deadline for financing the start of construction and - even more important - established a wise standard for the use of eminent domain in New York State.

It did nothing of the sort. It acknowledged that the standard may be very fuzzy, but said it was not the place for courts to intervene. More critique from Eric McClure of No Land Grab.